The Semantagician's Assistant

The answer is a short but sweet wordplay puzzler from an author who is clearly familiar with many of the amateur era's most famous works.

After playing this one on my own for about ten minutes, I put it aside so that I could suggest it to my play group. We all had a lot of fun with this well-fashioned game that seems to have drawn inspiration from a whole range of titles, but most resembles Counterfeit Monkey (to which overt homage is paid) blended with the escape-the-room structure of Suveh Nux (plus perhaps bits from Junior Arithmancer's framing story, The Impossible Bottle's iconic centerpiece, and the array of magical devices seen in Metamorphoses).

The puzzles fall into two main categories: deducing the function of various magical devices and then using those devices to craft the items needed to escape the room. Both of these types were well done. I don't know how long it might have taken me to finish the game on my own, but the group was able to do it in about 45 minutes.

The game is a bit poker-faced in the beginning, though there are definitely clues to get one started. Once the function of each machine is worked out, there is plenty of fun to be had in trying out the various implemented transformations. As with Counterfeit Monkey there are many more of these than are necessary to reach the end of the game, so a good part of the fun is just playing around. The game has no score, and I don't think that there are anything like achievements set up, so this is purely for one's own amusement.

Gameplay was 100% bug-free, and none of us spotted a single typo, so this work appears to have been very well tested. There is still room for improvement in player friendliness, however, due to uncharacteristically finicky interactions in a few places. (Spoiler - click to show)(We must have typed >PUT X ON TABLE a dozen times. It would be nice for this to automatically reroute to >PUT X IN CHAMBER instead of just disallowing it.) If there is to be a post-comp version, then an achievement system might encourage a more thorough exploration of the possibility space that the author has created; my sense is that we saw only a relatively small portion of it.

This would be a great game for introducing people to parser IF if you're prepared to help them get used to the conventions of the command prompt. Players both young and old are sure to be charmed by Weldon, the world-weary talking rabbit who occasionally provides light hints to nudge you on your way.

I extend my thanks to author Lance Nathan for producing this smart little gem and sharing it with all of us mere players. I certainly hope to see more games by Mr. Nathan in the future.